531 Goodbye Wham ! - The Edge of Heaven

Chart  entered : 21  June  1986

Chart  peak : 1

As   I  mentioned  on  the  Popular  thread  here , this  has  a  lot  in  common  with  The  Jam's  Beat  Surrender : consciously  designed  as  a  farewell  single ,  a  value  for  money  double  pack ,the  group's  fourth  and  final  number  one  and  not  much  of  an  afterlife.  Tom  Ewing's  appraisal  of  the  single  is  spot-on; I've  nothing  more  to  add.  Wham ! played  their  final  concert  at  Wembley  Stadium  while  this  was  number one,  supported  by  a  briefly  reunited  Haircut  100 , and  then  they  were  gone. George  wasn't  very  happy  with  the  performance  so  it's  never  had  an  official  release on  VHS  or  DVD.

Where  this  differs  from  Beat  Surrender  is  that  while  we  were  all  reeling  from  Weller's  decision  three  and  a  half  years  earlier  Wham's  demise  seemed  inevitable. With  two  solo  number  ones  under   his  belt  already,  it  seemed  only  a  matter  of  time  before  George  Michael  called  time  on  the  band  and  cast  adrift  his  useless  appendage. Though  fondly  remembered  by  their  fans,  Wham !  are  under-celebrated   given  the  superstar  status  they  achieved  in  their  short  time  together, the  victims  of  a  poisoned  legacy  of  terrible  boy  bands  in  the  three  decades  since  they  left  the  stage.

Well  we  know  we're  not  done  with  George  yet  so  what  happened  to  Andrew  Ridgeley ?  There  were  snide  remarks  that  he  could  team  up  with  Joe  Leeway, recently  made  redundant  by  The  Thompson  Twins,  and  "that  bloke  from  Boney  M"  ( Bobby  Farrell )  and  form  a  supergroup  of  the  under-talented ( Happy  Mondays   were  a  little  known  indie  act  at  the  time ).  

In  fact  Andrew  had  no  immediate  musical   plans  and  threw  himself  into  Formula  Three motor  racing  for  the  next  year  but  achieved  little. He  then  went  to  L.A.  to  pursue  an  acting  career  and  achieved  even  less. Rather  reluctantly  he  returned  to  the  UK  in  1990  and  began  work  on  a  solo  album. His  single  "Shake"  was  released  in  March  1990  and  we  finally  got  to  hear  his  singing  voice. To  no  one's  surprise  it  turned  out  to  be  dreadful, a  thin  inflexible  whine  that  only  his  mother  could  love. The  song  was  pretty  useless  too  and  the  guitars  seem  to  get  louder  as  it  goes  on  in  an  attempt  to  drown  him  out. Only  his  name  got  it  to  number  58  in  the  charts.

It  didn't  augur  well  for  the  album  "Son  of  Albert "  and  so  it  proved. Andrew  was  trying  to  re-position  himself  as  a  rocker  but  however   loud  the   guitars  and  drums  they  can't  disguise  the  fact  that  he  can  neither  sing  nor  write  a  decent  tune ( nor  indeed  cover  one  as  brutal  assaults  on  Chic's  "Hanging"  and  The  Everley  Brothers' "The  Price  of  Love"  prove ) . George  makes  a  token  contribution  as  an  inaudible  backing  vocalist  on  the  equally  dreadful  second  single  "Red  Dress". When  the  album  didn't  chart  CBS  did  everyone  a  favour  by  not  taking  up  their  option  on  a  second  album  and  Andrew's  recording  career  came  to  an  end.

Since  then  he's  lived  fairly  quietly  in  Cornwall  with  wife  Keren  Woodward   off  the  royalties  from  "Careless  Whisper"  and  the  takings  from  a  restaurant  they  own. He  has  occasionally  joined  George  on  stage  and  Wham!  were  going  to  reunite  for  Live  8  until  he  changed  his  mind  late  on.